Holiday Calendar

National Andy Day

Next celebratedMonday, November 16, 2026

A day for everyone called Andy, a short form so thoroughly adopted that American parents have been registering it as a first name in its own right since 1880.

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Last updated September 3, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATENovember 16
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Every trace of this day is younger than its story.

No founder, proclamation, or establishment record for National Andy Day has been located, and the day has no legal standing anywhere found. It circulates through holiday-listing sites and social posts, and the founding date repeated online traces back only to unsourced listings rather than to any record.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

More boys were named Andy in the 2000s than the 1960s

American parents named 17,825 boys Andy between 2000 and 2009. That is more than in any other decade in the federal birth record, and National Andy Day sits on the far side of a curve most people would draw backwards.

The obvious guess is the middle of the last century. The Social Security Administration's own year by year files say otherwise: the 1960s produced 12,138 Andys, about a third fewer.

Nor is that just a bigger generation. Measured as a share of all boys born, the 2000s still win, at 893 Andys per million against the 1960s' 630. On both counts, the name's best decade in America is the most recent one it finished.

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ORIGINS

Andy Day history

INTRODUCTION

On 2 July 1957 the Daily Mirror asked a cartoonist for a special humorous character to run in its Manchester edition. What came back has outlasted almost every other British newspaper strip, and it turns on a joke about a name.

The cartoonist was Reg Smythe, born in Hartlepool on 10 July 1917. His father built boats in the Teesside shipyards, the family was poor, and Smythe later called himself a canvas shoes kid, one step up from going barefoot.

CHAPTER 01

A cartoonist arrives very late

He went to Galleys Field School in Old Hartlepool and left at fourteen to work as an errand boy for a butcher. Nothing about that suggested a drawing career.

In 1950 he was a telephone clerk for the GPO in London. A poster he made for an amateur production of a play called Flowers for the Living drew enough compliments that people told him to start selling his drawings.

CHAPTER 02

The strip travels further than the name

Seven years later came the Mirror's request, and the character he invented was a work-shy husband in a flat cap whose wife did the work. The first cartoon ran in the paper's northern edition on Monday 5 August 1957, and reached its other editions the following April.

By the time Smythe died on 13 June 1998 it was reaching a readership put at 250 million people. He left over a year's supply of unpublished strips behind him, enough for the Mirror to keep running them before handing the drawing to someone else.

CHAPTER 03

The day itself leaves almost no trail

Against all that, the observance is thin. No author has been identified for it, and the phrase does not appear once in the United States Federal Register.

The earliest dated trace of the day anywhere is a holiday-listing page published in 2022, which fixes a floor on the listing rather than a beginning for the day. Everything else is repetition without a source underneath it.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Andy in the first federal count

The opening year of American birth records lists 58 boys given the name.

Raggedy Andy joins Raggedy Ann

Johnny Gruelle put the brother doll into print two years after Raggedy Ann's first book.

Andy Capp reaches print

Reg Smythe's flat-capped northerner appeared in the Daily Mirror's northern edition on 5 August.

Andy matches its best American rank

The name reached 193rd among boys, the highest position it has ever held in the federal count.

Smythe dies with the strip worldwide

By his death on 13 June the cartoon ran in 1,700 newspapers across 52 countries.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Andy Day Matters

RECORDS

A short form that parents have been registering for 146 years

Reference works file Andy as a diminutive of Andrew, which invites the assumption that nobody is actually called it. American birth records disagree in every year they cover, because these are names parents wrote down.

LANGUAGE

The reference works and the listings disagree

Standard name references and the holiday listings that carry this day give different accounts of what Andy means. A day attached to a name is the occasion on which somebody finally checks which of them is right.

CULTURE

One Andy carried a British newspaper worldwide

A cartoon drawn for one corner of England ended up in newspapers around the world. The name was picked for a joke and travelled a very long way further than the joke did.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Andy Day by the Numbers

94,185
American boys named Andy since 1880
146
Consecutive years Andy appears in US records
1,936
Andys born in 2005, the record year
14
Languages Andy Capp was translated into

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Andy Day

Punch took one cartoon out of more than 6,000

Before Andy Capp, Reg Smythe said of the humour magazine: I sent them more than 6,000 cartoons before I had my one and only acceptance.

The man who named Andy Capp renamed himself

He was born Reginald Smyth and added a final letter to his surname when he took up cartooning professionally.

Andy Warhol was not born an Andy

The artist was born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh in 1928, to Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants from what is now Slovakia.

Nineteen calendars skip the name on this date

Behind the Name lists November 16 name days for nineteen countries and none assigns it to Andrew or anything derived from it. On its November 30 page, all nineteen countries listed do.

Warrior is not in the etymology anywhere

Andrew comes from the Greek Andreas, from andreios meaning manly or masculine, itself from aner, man. The warrior gloss is an embellishment.

She should have been included in the title, but I wanted a single name and the pun on 'handicap' was irresistible.
Reg SmytheCreator of Andy Capp, on leaving out Andy's wife Florrie
Andy Capp was born on the A1. The trip was seven hours, and the name took three.
Reg SmytheCreator of Andy Capp

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Andy Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Ask an Andy what is on the certificate

The birth records show the name being registered in its own right, not only shortened from Andrew afterwards. Asking is the quickest way to find out which kind of Andy you know.

READ

Read the etymology rather than a listing

The reference entry for Andrew runs to a few lines and cites six separate works. It takes about a minute and it settles the argument for good.

COMPARE

Compare the two name day calendars

November 16 and November 30 carry very different lists of names. One of them is where the Andrews actually are.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Andy Day?

1 / 8

In which decade did American parents name the most boys Andy?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, so shops, schools and offices all treat it as an ordinary working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources
4primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2026
Beyond the Top 1000 Names: national baby name data
One file per year since 1880 listing every name given to at least five babies.
View source
British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent
Reg Smythe [Andy Capp]
Smythe's life and his own account of naming Andy Capp, with the strip's syndication figures.
View source
U.S. Federal Register
Federal Register documents search API
Returns zero federal documents containing the phrase National Andy Day.
View source
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Warhol
The artist's biography, including the name and Pittsburgh family he was born into.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name2011
Meaning, origin and history of the name Andrew
The full etymology of the parent name, with its Greek root and six cited references.
View source
Behind the Name2011
Meaning, origin and history of the name Andy
The reference entry for Andy, its usage, and the longer names it shortens.
View source
Behind the Name
November 16 Name Days
The names nineteen national calendars assign to November 16.
View source
Behind the Name
November 30 Name Days
The nineteen national calendars that give November 30 to a form of Andrew.
View source
Miami-Dade Public Library System2026-06
Raggedy Ann and Andy: The History of a Beloved Library Treasure
The Gruelle dolls, their 1918 and 1920 arrivals in print, and the library that keeps the originals.
View source
The Comics Journal2017
Andy Capp is Sixty This Year
A long account of Smythe's career and why American readers took to an unlikeable hero.
View source
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